


keep my secrets, hope to die

by defcontwo



Series: lifelines like branches [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Young Avengers
Genre: Gen, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Vigilantism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-28
Updated: 2014-08-28
Packaged: 2018-02-15 02:34:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2212497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/defcontwo/pseuds/defcontwo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She’s a straight A student with a type A personality and her fingers in the pot of just about every progressive activist group on campus but there is a thrumming running through her veins that tells her over and over and over, this is not enough. You can do more. You can always do more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	keep my secrets, hope to die

**Author's Note:**

> so, this is set in my Steve/Bucky 'verse where Steve loses the serum and has to readjust but this is far less about Steve and far more about Kate and Eli and how they fit into this world that I've created.

Kate has this memory from before -- from before her mother died, before her father became this closed off creature, this unknown entity that shares space with her but might as well be a finely clothed ghost. 

She is running up and down the length of the main hallway in their penthouse apartment, a pillowcase wrapped around her thin shoulders like a cape, streaming out behind her, all bright purples and covered in crowns. 

Her mother, stood on one end of the hallway, with a bow in one hand, is giving her a look that is equal parts indulgence and amazement. 

And the funny thing is: she doesn’t know if the memory is real or not. 

If it’s a dream or a memory of a fantasy made up to help her sleep or not. Whenever she calls it to mind, it has a sort of fuzzy quality, cast in soft, golden lighting and she is left alone with this, with no one to tell her what is true. 

But she likes to think that it is. 

If it _is_ a dream, though: what the hell does it mean? 

. 

Kate is exactly one whole minute late to the first day of “Sexuality in U.S. History” thanks to a late train and a couple of rude as futz commuters, forcing her to slink in and take a seat in the back. She shrugs her messenger back to the floor hurriedly and digs through it to pull out a notebook and pen so quickly that it’s not until she’s sitting up straight, notebook opened and pen clicked that she realizes who’s sitting next to her. 

He’s about the same height as her, even sitting down, with messy blond hair that falls over thick black frames and a face that’s as familiar as her own. 

It’s Captain futzing America. 

Or: the former Captain America, now, because they all saw the announcement on the news, saw the press conference that he made, about new beginnings and moving forward and starting over, a practiced speech in meted out words that made her wonder just how close he was to shrinking into himself and screaming. 

Captain America goes by Sam Wilson these days. 

This guy, this guy is just Steve Rogers. 

“Holy crap,” Kate says, way, way too loud and the entire lecture hall turns to stare at her, professor and ex-Captain America included. 

“Do you have something to share with the class, girl who came in through the back and thought I wouldn’t notice?” The professor asks, raising one carefully plucked eyebrow in a way that Kate actually really admires. 

Kate slinks in her seat, mortified. “No, Professor Frost. I’m sorry, Professor Frost, it won’t happen again.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Kate spies a sly grin crossing ex-Captain America’s face and Kate thinks, all right well, _screw you_. 

. 

These are the things that Kate knows is true: 

She is a hell of a goddamn shot with a bow. She won every archery award at camp seven years in a row and she knows more about self-defense than anyone else she knows except for maybe her best friend Eli, the prickly but incredibly awesome dude she made friends with last semester at a Take Back the Night event. 

She’s a straight A student with a type A personality and her fingers in the pot of just about every progressive activist group on campus but there is a thrumming running through her veins that tells her over and over and over, this is not enough. You can do more. You can always do more. 

She has this memory and it might not be true, but in that memory, she wears a cape like a superhero and she _wonders_ , were you meant for more than this?

. 

So what if every once in a while, she and Eli engage in a little solo Take Back the Night marches. So what if their marches are a little less like marches and a little more like a two-person vigilante justice team patrolling the limits of their college campus, a space that encompasses a greater part of inhabited Manhattan. 

Her and Eli, they know how to take care of themselves in a way that others don’t. They watch out for each other, they have a finely tuned system, a partnership that works in perfect equilibrium. 

Is it dangerous? Yeah. 

Is it foolish as hell? Well. 

Probably, yeah. 

“Maybe we should think about carrying something a little more serious than our fists,” Kate muses, propping her combat boots up against Eli’s bed to lace them up. 

“What, like mace?” Eli says, turning and giving her a pointed, incredulous look. “Maybe _you_ can but if I did, well....” 

“Nah, I was thinking more like a bow and arrow,” Kate says, offhanded like it’s a joke and Eli laughs like it is, shoves her a little and tells her to get her fucking boots off his bed, but. 

But maybe she wasn’t joking, exactly. 

.

“I think we got off on the wrong foot,” ex-Captain America says, holding out a cup of coffee to her from where he was standing, clearly waiting, outside of the lecture hall the next week. 

“If by wrong foot, you mean I made a fool of myself to the scariest and most impressive professor in this school and you totally laughed about it, then yeah, you know -- I guess,” Kate says, crossing her arms over her chest. 

“Sorry,” Steve says, lips quirking in a way that suggests that he’s not really all that sorry at all. “Don’t worry, I’m pretty sure you made up for it with your insights throughout the rest of the lecture. You were the only one who really impressed her, I think.” He holds out the coffee again and she takes it with a small thanks. 

It’s just a latte, simple enough, and exactly what she was in the mood for today, damn him. 

“This feels a little too rom-com-y for my tastes, you know,” Kate says, nudging open the door to the lecture hall with her hip. “I’m not gonna fall for your old guy buying me coffee charms, Rogers.” 

Steve flushes but rolls his eyes, soldiering on gamely nonetheless. “Just looking for a friend. Like I said. What you had to say last week -- it was impressive.” 

He holds out his hand to introduce himself, as if anyone would need the introduction. It’s either bull-headed obliviousness or a desire to just be treated like anyone else, and she’s pretty sure she knows what the right way to respond here is. 

“Steve Rogers.” 

Kate takes his hand. “Nice to meet ya, Steve, I’m Kate Bishop.” 

. 

Kate’s phone rings just as she’s about to put the key in the door to her apartment and she swears softly, juggling all her books to get to her phone and answering it with an impatient, “ _what?_ ”

“I hear we have a friend in common,” Eli says, wasting no time on formalities. “The former Captain America?” 

“Yeah?” Kate says. She slams the door to her apartment shut and tosses her keys onto the table with a clatter. “He’s in one of my gender studies courses, we sit next to each other.” 

“Yeah, he’s in one of my poli-sci classes, we sit across from each other. Dude’s got a lot of good stuff to say, actually,” Eli says, “we’re gonna grab burritos next week.” 

Eli stops, blowing out a breath, but Kate knows Eli, she knows that he’s got a lot more to say here. 

“And?”

“And...don’t you think that’s a little bit suspicious? Do you think maybe he’s onto us? That maybe _someone_ is onto us?” 

Kate’s mind flashes to Steve, waiting for her with a cup of coffee and a guileless smile and an offer of friendship, and hates the reflexive wince. “It’s not….it’s not like we’re doing anything wrong, though, right?” 

“Not exactly,” Eli says, like he’s not at all convinced. Intent is half the battle, after all. 

“Have you...have you asked him about your grandfather?” Kate says, biting the bullet even when she knows it might start a fight between them. 

“No,” Eli says shortly. 

“Will you?” 

“I don’t know.” 

There’s no point in pushing the envelope with this one -- Eli’s grandpa is a minefield topic with him and how he wants to handle this, how he wants to handle _Captain America_ , that one’s up to him completely. 

Kate shrugs, aiming for a subject change. “Maybe...maybe it’s just a coincidence, you know? Maybe he has no idea.” 

“Maybe,” Eli says. “But do you believe in that kind of coincidence?” 

. 

Two nights later, Kate takes out a guy who has some freshman she doesn’t know cornered in a dark alleyway, threatening her with a knife. She twists his wrist, forcing him to drop the knife and the freshman runs off as it falls to the pavement with a clatter, giving her a chance to knee him in the groin and follow it up with a punch that sends him sprawling. 

A shiver runs up and down her spine and her heart is beating so fast, too fast with the realization of what could have been and what wasn’t. Kate’s fingers fumble and shake as she dials 911 before taking off and she could’ve died, here, and it was stupid, it was definitely a terrible, terrible idea but it felt right, too, and Kate can’t find it in herself to regret that. 

The next day, she gets coffee with Steve. It’s getting to be a habit, now, a well developed tradition that she can’t pretend hasn’t turned into a friendship. 

She looks him in the eye and she tells him about her mother, about archery and soup kitchens and how Catholic school made her hate the sight of plaid. She tells him about falling in love with her best friend Cassie and never knowing what to do about it, about letting it all slip away when Cassie moved away to California and how now they communicate entirely through WhatsApp messages that still leave Kate feeling a little off kilter, a little like she let go what could have been the best thing in her life. 

In return, he tells her about Bucky, about being queer a whole world and a century away, about the jolt he gets every time Captain America is used as an example in a class lecture, and about getting used to modern hearing aids and never once does he let on that maybe he knows what she gets up to at night. 

Kate likes him a lot and she is not someone who likes people easily. 

Maybe Eli’s wrong, maybe it is a coincidence. 

. 

“If there’s one thing that I’m learning these days…I’m learning that there are all kinds of ways to help people. That I don’t have to do it by fighting,” Steve says, face down turned, gaze fixed on the foam on top of his latte as he stirs it and there’s something a little lost, a little unsure about his words, like he’s not sure if he believes them all the way but he wants to. 

His words leave a heavy weight on Kate’s shoulders, stomach cold with dread. Is she that transparent? 

“But what if -- what if sometimes, it feels like fighting is all you can do?” 

Steve shrugs, a self-deprecating twist to his smile that’s starting to look familiar. “I’ll let you know when I figure it out.” 

. 

“Hey, Bishop, you ready?” 

Eli stands in the doorway, tall and broad and handsome, and there’s a hero’s set to his jaw -- there’s something about the way he carries himself that tells you that he’s capable of great things. 

Kate gets to her feet with a clomp, combat boots falling heavy to the ground. 

Outside, the sun is just starting to go down. 

Kate ties her hair back with an elastic, bright purple, just like that cape from years and years ago. 

“Always.”


End file.
